1. Field of the Description
The present description relates, in general, to maintenance of amusement park rides and other entertainment rides such as round rides, and, more particularly, to maintenance platforms for use with round rides, e.g., rides with pivotal arms supporting ride vehicles, that extend out from a central hub rotated to move vehicles about a central axis, or to round rides adapted with a deployable, elevated maintenance platform.
2. Relevant Background
Amusement and theme parks are popular worldwide with hundreds of millions of people visiting the parks each year. Many parks include numerous round rides that include vehicles or gondolas mounted on support arms extending outward from a centrally located drive or rotation assembly (rotating central hub structure). The passengers or riders sit in the vehicles and are rotated in a circle about the drive assembly, which spins about its central axis. These rides are very popular with younger children and families.
A round ride includes a central structure or central hub that is rotated at relatively low rates such as 4 to 10 revolutions per minute. The hub structure in many round rides may take the form of one of the drive and support assemblies designed and distributed by Zamperla, Inc., 49 Fanny Road, Parsippany, N.J., USA or assemblies provided by other similar ride design and production companies. These conventional round rides are popular with park operators in part because they require only a small footprint of precious park space (such as when compared with a roller coaster or water ride) and are relatively easy to operate including loading and unloading of passengers. While existing round rides provide an enjoyable experience and likely will continue to be a mainstay for amusement and theme parks, there is a demand among park operators to reduce the cost and time required to maintain round rides and to maintain or even improve the safety of the maintenance workers repairing the rides.
Presently, maintenance of round rides involves maintenance personnel bringing additional equipment to the site of the ride so that they can safely access portions of the central drive assembly or hub structure. For example, ladders and/or manlifts are used to allow the workers to reach mid-to-upper portions of the central drive assembly, e.g., the workers would place ladders between the raised vehicle-support arms and climb up onto the hub structure. Because of the fall potential at the elevated heights, the maintenance personnel also needs to wear safety harnesses, which sometimes restrict their movement and ability to perform certain maintenance tasks. As a result, maintenance of a round ride requires extensive planning to select and provide all the extra equipment, and the cost of maintenance is relatively high because complying with safety requirements such as safety harnesses and extra personnel for safety support or spotters increases the man hours required to perform even simple maintenance at elevated heights associated with the round rides.
Hence, there remains a need for ride and/or maintenance tool designs that make maintenance activities on the round rides easier for personnel and that reduce the cost of maintaining such round rides. Such ride and maintenance tool designs preferably would be configured with a focus on safety and efficient performance of maintenance tasks. Preferably, such a ride design or maintenance tool assembly would allow maintenance personnel to safely access at mid-to-upper portions of the hub structure without the need for additional equipment such as safety harnesses and ladders.